COAL MINE THEATRE Kicks Off 2023-24 Season With APPROPRIATE Beginning September 24

In September, COAL MINE THEATRE begins their 9th thrilling season with the Canadian Premiere of the 2015 Obie Award-winner for Best New American Play, Brendan Jacob's Jenkins' APPROPRIATE.  Directed by COAL MINE co-founder Ted Dykstra, APPROPRIATE runs September 24 – October 15.
 
A searingly comic family drama in the spirit of August, Osage County, the play follows the members of the Lafayette family as they return to their crumbling Arkansas plantation home on the occasion of the recent death of their patriarch. As his three adult children sort through a lifetime of hoarded mementos and junk, they collide over clutter, debt, and a contentious family history. But after a disturbing discovery surfaces among their father's possessions, the reunion takes a turn for the explosive, unleashing a series of crackling surprises and confrontations.
 
Dykstra - who thrilled audiences with his acclaimed production of Annie Baker's THE ANTIPODES - directs an illustrious cast including Alison Beckwith, Raquel Duffy, Ruari Hamman, Amy Lee, Hannah Levinson, Gray Powell, Andy Trithardt, and Mackenzie Wojcik. Associate Directed by Matthew G Brown the production will feature Set Design by Steve Lucas and Rebecca Morris, Costume Design by Des'ree Gray, and Sound Design by Deanna H. Choi and Michael Wanless.
 
"When I read APPROPRIATE I knew I was reading something very, very special,” comments Dykstra. “I gasped out loud so many times. I was horrified and yet I was moved. I was electrified that someone had the skills needed to quote the styles and themes of so many well-known American plays, while at the same time writing something monumental about race and family in a way that has never been done before. It's one of the finest dramas I've ever read and I've read a lot of plays! Mr. Jacob-Jenkins is, in my opinion, easily one of the best living English language playwrights in the world."
 
APPROPRIATE was first performed at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in the Humana Festival of New American Plays. The play was then performed in Chicago at the Victory Gardens Theater and at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington D.C. in 2013, and then ran Off-Broadway in February 2014 in The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center, New York.  This November, Second Stage Theater will produce the play's Broadway premiere at the Hayes Theater starring Sarah Paulson.
 
Jacob-Jenkins is a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and Obie Award winner best known for his plays AN OCTOROON and THE COMEUPPANCE. He was showrunner, executive producer, and writer for the 2022 Hulu/FX's drama series KINDRED based on Octavia E. Butler's novel. An African American playwright, he is best known for plays that centre and explore Blackness, including his first full length play, the incendiary NEIGHBORS, in which a black family wears the blackface makeup of minstrel shows. 
 
Currently a Professor in the Practice of Theater and Performance Studies at Yale, his most recent honors include the Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright from the London Evening Standard, a London Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwriting, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Steinberg Playwriting Award, and the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award. Jacobs-Jenkins has taught at NYU, Juilliard, Hunter College, and the University of Texas-Austin.
  
The new COAL MINE THEATRE boasts an increased seating capacity of up to 120 seats, brand new chairs, and a more spacious, relaxed seating configuration — offering greater comfort to patrons while maintaining the up-close-and-personal performance intimacy that has become the COAL MINE's hallmark. The company's new home also offers improved audience amenities including an HVAC air filtration system and upgrades to the lobby, bar, and audience washrooms.  The venue is also situated directly across from Woodbine subway station.
 
Tickets for the 22.23 season in the new venue are available at coalminetheatre.com.

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